Filling in life's blanks.

Don't know about you, but these hot, humid summers really take it out of me. Hate to say I'm longing for the fall (though it's my favorite season, it's so fleeting), because after fall comes that most wretched of seasons, but the weather over the past couple of months has just dragged me down. I get exhausted so easily, even when I've hardly spent any time outdoors. Maybe it's knowing I'm stuck inside the same as in the winter, when the wind's so cold it just slices through you. Then I look outside at my garden and most of its dead and turning black by this point, since I don't care to go outside and lop off the dead flowers. They may as well be covered in two feet of snow, the way they look.

Blech.

So that explains a lot of the why as to the lack of personal posts lately. I've been all business all the time, not that I don't love yapping about books. I do, but I also miss the virtual connection of more chatty posts. I'm sure I lose some of my audience used to my insane ravings, people not particularly interested in books (or at least so MANY of them) who drop by to see what my latest mania is.

It's been busy, though. Hard to point a finger at one reason I've been virtually silent, but I expect the malaise brought on by the heat compounds all the little tasks. Feels like I could just sleep all day and night it's so wearing on the soul. I could use a few weeks in the 70s to perk me up a bit, and a huge drop in humidity. If you see Mother Nature, could you give her that suggestion?

So I complain when it's cold and I complain when it's hot. If you guessed I'm hard to please you've guessed correctly. Bing! You get the prize!

I guess the biggest story here is school starts back on Monday. Monday! Wow, that flew by. My middle child went to freshman orientation today, to help make Monday's huge transition at least a little less overwhelming. His graduating class will number in the hundreds - around 600 my daughter guesstimates. 600! Do you know how many were in my graduating class? Somewhere in the 30s. Definitely under 40. Then again, I grew up in a tiny town, one where people set out lawn chairs to sit and watch the corn grow, packing picnic lunches so they could stay the whole day.

So many differences between where I grew up and where they are. So many cultural differences, too, between our generations. Hard to imagine things being any different for them than they were for me, though I know every generation says that, and it makes me sound old making the comparisons. But I can't even imagine how different my grandchildren's lives will be. Assuming my children choose to have families, because I don't push for that and would never put that pressure on them. So we'll just say "the next generation" and leave it at that.

Anyway, that's where I'm at, hoping the weather breaks soon so I can get out of the house and de-uglify the garden, and getting the kids ship shape and ready for another school year. I'm also hoping I'll get the green light to go back to exercising again, because I need to do that in the worst way. It's a physical and mental boost releasing those post-exercise endorphins, and I'm almost at the one year point from the initial knee injury. Enough, already!

A good, long nap's what I could use right now, in the air conditioned comfort of my house. Because once homework starts again so does the busy-ness of the school year: the concerts, the mom-can-you-drive-me-to this or that place, making the lunches every night... Goodbye to the relatively light summer schedule, and the return of insanity.

And that's my story. Now we're all caught up. See? You've hardly missed a thing, really. Complain, complain, complain, I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired. Repeat as needed.

Comments

[carole]

Lovely to have a personal post again. I admit I haven't the energy to read too many book posts, good though they are.

[Courtney]

Oh, friend - at least you have been READING in this heat - I have barely managed that, since we are air-conditionerless. Between the heat and the first four months of my pregnancy, I have barely managed to accomplish anything and have fallen into reruns of House and bad reality tv. This summer has been as brutal, in its own way, as February was. Cheers to the approaching fall!